Joined: Mon January 9th, 2006, 04:03 GMTPosts: 1912Location: I should be in Hollywood.

Tragos114 wrote:

I should add that these thefts don't bother me at all , i just find them interesting.

This isn't related to Together Through Life, but still interesting: You ought to check out "Strange Love" by Slim Harpo. I don't think many make reference to it, but Dylan obviously carbon copied it when he made "'Til I Fell In Love With You."

There's also some Carter Family song that serves as the blue print for the soundtrack version of "Tell Ol' Bill." Can't remember the title, but I do remember that it's a very pretty song.

I should add that these thefts don't bother me at all , i just find them interesting.

I wouldn't even call My Wife's Hometown a "theft", since there's a credit shared.Another one is Beyond Here Lies Nothing, which is very similar to Otis Rush's All Your Love...But again, the man loves Chicago Blues...

The blues rhumba beat predates both Black Magic Woman and All Your Love. Elmore James and B.B. King, to name just two of many, both employed the rhumba beat and, like Otis Rush, contrasted the rhumba with a more straightforward blues shuffle within the song. The King song "Woke Up This Morning" dates to 1956. Rush's song was released in 1958, and King's song was likely the model.

The motif probably originates in jazz, perhaps even in Jelly Roll Morton's piano technique. Duke Ellington's masterpiece Conga Brava from 1939 features a prominent Afro-latin beat, switching to a more standard swing rhythm for some section work and some solos. Morton spoke of the "Spanish tinge" in early New Orleans music and how its incorporation into his music led to his "invention" of jazz.

Dylan's song is in a minor key, like Rush's, but the actual guitar parts are not similar. Dylan's song is far less syncopated, much more straightforward, and melodically sounds closer to Black Magic Woman in the vocal. The guitar solos have a bit of Rush in them, not much but more than any overt Santana licks. I just listened to the Dylan track for the first time in months. Not much of a song, over before anything happens. Not bad, not particularly good. Maybe the most significant aspect is its place as cut 1, pointing out the emptiness of what follows.

"Life Is Hard" is just dreadful, betraying Dylan's wooden timing and sentimentality. So sad. It's even worse than the plodding Workingman's Blues #2. People go on about Dylan's "phrasing" when so often his choices in phrasing are just plain ugly and anti-musical. I feel like both in the melody and the vocal there lurks some prior song or singer, but I can't identify a specific source.

"If You Ever Go to Houston" is a sing-song folk melody. It reminds me of 3 Dog Night's "I've Never Been to Spain" by Hoyt Axton, to a different rhythm. The accordian playing is horrifically awful. Surely a better artist would have demanded more than the amateurish sound of half-note squeezed chords obliterating a more interesting acoustic guitar part. Behind Axton's song, Minglewood Blues and its "If you're ever in Memphis" verse may be feeding Dylan's song.

"Forgetful Heart" has the same plodding rhythm in the vocal that is ruining so many Dylan songs in this century. Another minor key 12 bar song that sounds vaguely familiar. It bears a close resemblance to B.B.King's "The Thrill Is Gone"--almost enough for a lawsuit at some points. Minor I, minor IV, major flat VI to major V. Exactly what King's song does, except B.B. uses a minor flat III in transition to the minor IV and a flat VII in the turnaround.

"This Dream of You" is another plodding lugubrious accordian song, vaguely Tex-Mex in rhythm and sound. Another song echoes in my head, something from the 70s with an accordian, especially in the finale to each verse after the bridge. "Tequila Sunrise" had a similar feel. I'm getting a Mink DeVille moment also, maybe "Mixed Up Shook Up Girl?" But some other song is also echoing, can't place it right now. I think this is more a case of genre motives than influence or theft. A decent song played and sung by corpses.

"Shake Mama Shake" is the standard "rolling and tumbling" blues progression in a slightly different rhythm. Not an improvement for the difference, as it emphasizes Dylan's dull timing. One of his most phlegmatic vocals recorded. Did you ever see someone spit a big wad of phlegm on the sidewalk and almost vomit? That's my experience listening to Dylan gargling his effluents in this song.

"I Feel Like A Change Comin' On" almost escapes the plodding that infects so many songs, at least instrumentally. The vocal is the big and fatal limitation. It's a slower, duller kind of rhythm of the sort animating Tyrone Davis's great "Can I Change My Mind". Poor David Hidalgo. I know he can play fine accordian. The song starts out in a very familiar place with the loping bass line. Again, I can't quite recall the song it might resemble if only by coincidence. I think it's a repeated I/IV thing similar to "Just My Imagination" by Smokey Robinson in some ways. Again, not really an influence or source except in the most general and indirect way.

"It's All Good" is a one chord boogie with roots in "Rolling Stone" and other one chord Delta blues songs. The instrumental motif is exactly the main motif of "Got Love If You Want It." A song with one chord and a melody with a half octave range and mostly just one note sounds like the best song for Dylan these days.

Dylan is the weakest link here, unable to sing his own lyrics with any force or authority for more than half a song. That is unforgiveable in a studio album. But this is about as good as Dylan is capable of in his dotage, far from his worst album, and better than Modern Times for sure, if only because the songs are mercifully short.

The blues rhumba beat predates both Black Magic Woman and All Your Love. Elmore James and B.B. King, to name just two of many, both employed the rhumba beat and, like Otis Rush, contrasted the rhumba with a more straightforward blues shuffle within the song. The King song "Woke Up This Morning" dates to 1956. Rush's song was released in 1958, and King's song was likely the model.

The motif probably originates in jazz, perhaps even in Jelly Roll Morton's piano technique. Duke Ellington's masterpiece Conga Brava from 1939 features a prominent Afro-latin beat, switching to a more standard swing rhythm for some section work and some solos. Morton spoke of the "Spanish tinge" in early New Orleans music and how its incorporation into his music led to his "invention" of jazz.

Dylan's song is in a minor key, like Rush's, but the actual guitar parts are not similar. Dylan's song is far less syncopated, much more straightforward, and melodically sounds closer to Black Magic Woman in the vocal. The guitar solos have a bit of Rush in them, not much but more than any overt Santana licks. I just listened to the Dylan track for the first time in months. Not much of a song, over before anything happens. Not bad, not particularly good. Maybe the most significant aspect is its place as cut 1, pointing out the emptiness of what follows.

"Life Is Hard" is just dreadful, betraying Dylan's wooden timing and sentimentality. So sad. It's even worse than the plodding Workingman's Blues #2. People go on about Dylan's "phrasing" when so often his choices in phrasing are just plain ugly and anti-musical. I feel like both in the melody and the vocal there lurks some prior song or singer, but I can't identify a specific source.

"If You Ever Go to Houston" is a sing-song folk melody. It reminds me of 3 Dog Night's "I've Never Been to Spain" by Hoyt Axton, to a different rhythm. The accordian playing is horrifically awful. Surely a better artist would have demanded more than the amateurish sound of half-note squeezed chords obliterating a more interesting acoustic guitar part. Behind Axton's song, Minglewood Blues and its "If you're ever in Memphis" verse may be feeding Dylan's song.

"Forgetful Heart" has the same plodding rhythm in the vocal that is ruining so many Dylan songs in this century. Another minor key 12 bar song that sounds vaguely familiar. It bears a close resemblance to B.B.King's "The Thrill Is Gone"--almost enough for a lawsuit at some points. Minor I, minor IV, major flat VI to major V. Exactly what King's song does, except B.B. uses a minor flat III in transition to the minor IV and a flat VII in the turnaround.

"This Dream of You" is another plodding lugubrious accordian song, vaguely Tex-Mex in rhythm and sound. Another song echoes in my head, something from the 70s with an accordian, especially in the finale to each verse after the bridge. "Tequila Sunrise" had a similar feel. I'm getting a Mink DeVille moment also, maybe "Mixed Up Shook Up Girl?" But some other song is also echoing, can't place it right now. I think this is more a case of genre motives than influence or theft. A decent song played and sung by corpses.

"Shake Mama Shake" is the standard "rolling and tumbling" blues progression in a slightly different rhythm. Not an improvement for the difference, as it emphasizes Dylan's dull timing. One of his most phlegmatic vocals recorded. Did you ever see someone spit a big wad of phlegm on the sidewalk and almost vomit? That's my experience listening to Dylan gargling his effluents in this song.

"I Feel Like A Change Comin' On" almost escapes the plodding that infects so many songs, at least instrumentally. The vocal is the big and fatal limitation. It's a slower, duller kind of rhythm of the sort animating Tyrone Davis's great "Can I Change My Mind". Poor David Hidalgo. I know he can play fine accordian. The song starts out in a very familiar place with the loping bass line. Again, I can't quite recall the song it might resemble if only by coincidence. I think it's a repeated I/IV thing similar to "Just My Imagination" by Smokey Robinson in some ways. Again, not really an influence or source except in the most general and indirect way.

"It's All Good" is a one chord boogie with roots in "Rolling Stone" and other one chord Delta blues songs. The instrumental motif is exactly the main motif of "Got Love If You Want It." A song with one chord and a melody with a half octave range and mostly just one note sounds like the best song for Dylan these days.

Dylan is the weakest link here, unable to sing his own lyrics with any force or authority for more than half a song. That is unforgiveable in a studio album. But this is about as good as Dylan is capable of in his dotage, far from his worst album, and better than Modern Times for sure, if only because the songs are mercifully short.

With all due respect i have to say that you don't seem to get TTL or MD ...

I get both records just fine. There's no single way to "get" any music. I like reading coherent and detailed responses to Dylan, no matter what the listener happens to think about the music. I find both Street Legal and Masked & Anonymous laughably awful, egotistical monstrosities; I also find elaborate defenses of both works interesting if never convincing, but as I read such reactions, I take further measure of my own responses and try to learn more. A bias that admits no other plausible biases is weaker for being unable to imagine alternative points of view. The most important aspects of the music for me are objective--the clipped rhythm in the vocals with syllables landing squarely and predictably on the beat, the audible phlegm, the derivative musical accompaniment, the lack of melodic range, the diction of the lyrics, the erratic command over every instrument Dylan plays including his voice. I have no emotional attachment to Dylan at this point--he's not my hero, he isn't my favorite musician, and I listen to his music only a few times a year and then only out of curiosity or some reason of further research. I do have a strong interest in his position in cultural history and in the kinds of responses his work generates.

If other people have intense emotional attachments, enjoy the sound of phlegm, and so forth, that's fine with me. I still think that in addition to being a clever businessman Dylan was an historically significant songwriter and rock star who wrote some magnificent songs. Ultimately, that significance will be established through the entire range of reactions to his work, not a selection that admits no flaws. Inconsistency is one of the most obvious features of Dylan's work and career, at every moment including the present. This inconsistency within the work is precisely why there are such divergent opinions about much of it; the greatness of relatively few works that show Dylan at his best is why four or five of his many albums are nearly always rated as superior to the others.

I appreciate your "due respect"--I've read many of your posts and know you make honest and valued contributions to the discussions. I have no need to agree with you before returning that respect; I'm more likely to learn something from the differences in our views.

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